FBI warns of increased losses from crypto scams as crooks deepfake Apple's CEO

Investors are estimated to have lost at least $5.6 billion to crypto scammers last year, a 45% increase compared to 2022, according to the FBI. The latest scam involves a deepfake of Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, asking people to send him bitcoin (BTC) in exchange for receiving double the amount in return.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported receiving more than 69,000 complaints related to cryptocurrency fraud in 2023. Although these complaints represent only around 10% of all financial fraud cases, they account for nearly 50% of the total financial losses.

The largest portion of these losses, 71%, came from investment scams. Other prevalent schemes include call center fraud, personal data breaches, extortion, and romance/confidence scams.

IC3 reported receiving complaints from victims in over 200 countries, with 84% of the complaints originating from the United States.

The FBI encourages victims to submit a complaint through IC3.gov, even if they did not experience a financial loss. When filing a complaint, victims should provide key details, such as cryptocurrency addresses, the amounts and types of cryptocurrencies involved, transaction hashes, and the dates and times of the transactions.

Other helpful information includes when and where the scammer was met, the platforms used, any phone numbers involved, and any other identifying details. The FBI also warned victims to be cautious of crypto asset recovery services, particularly those that charge an upfront fee.

Meanwhile, tips for reporting scams may prove useful in light of a recent scam that occurred during Apple’s annual device presentation yesterday. Deepfakes of Apple CEO Tim Cook flooded YouTube (since removed), asking viewers to send not only BTC but also tether (USDT), ethereum (ETH), and dogecoin (DOGE). The fake Tim Cook promised that once a deposit was made, the system would process it and send back double the amount

🚨Breaking 🚨

Apple US YouTube channel hacked? There is a fake Ai video of TimCook streaming on it asking for bitcoin. 😱#AppleEvent pic.twitter.com/b2DOyhxBLL

undefined Abhishek Bhatnagar (@abhishek) September 9, 2024

AI is getting WAY too good

355k people watching a fake “apple” account on @youtube that’s promoting a massive crypto scam lol

The reason there are so many viewers is because the keynote today at 12pm cst@YouTubeCreators pic.twitter.com/O2ufpxdKnF

undefined BearPig 🧸🐷 (@BearPigCentral) September 9, 2024

This type of "double-your-money" scam is one of the oldest in the crypto space. Despite increased awareness of such schemes, scammers continue to target naive victims.

YouTube acknowledged the recent wave of deepfakes and urged users to report any fake videos.